A lectionary pitfall: 12-22-11

Once again holidays celebrated by different religions are overlapping.

I'm thinking now of Advent for Christians and Hanukkah for Jews. And because Christianity traces its roots to Judaism, it's a good time to think again about ways in which these two Abrahamic religions (Islam is the third) relate.

Over history, the answer has been that they have not gotten along well at all. For my essay on the sorrowful tale of anti-Judaism in Christian history, look under the "Check this out" headline on the right side of this page.

In recent decades, the two religions have enjoyed much better -- though far from perfect -- relations, and one reason for the imperfection is what theologians call supersessionism, by which they mean an arrogant Christian tendency to act as if Christianity made Judaism irrelevant.

Supersessionism came up again in the book I introduced you to here yesterday, The Hyphenateds. In it, Emily Bowen, a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) pastor, notes that the Revised Common Lectionary, used by many Protestant pastors as a source of biblical texts for preaching, can reinforce the supersessionist impulse even if it doesn't mean to.

". . .the ease with which Christianity has practiced the supersession of Judaism," she writes, "is remarkable and frightening to behold, in large part because many do not even realize that it's happening. And. . .it happens in abundance throughout the lectionary.

"Hebrew Scriptures are chosen for their connection to the gospel reading for the week. Such a pairing plays into a hermeneutic of promise and fulfillment and relegates the Hebrew Scriptures to being nothing more than a prelude to the New Testament. Such a move is irresponsible."

It is understandable and, I would argue, legitimate for Christians to read the Hebrew Scriptures attuned to prophecies they believe get fulfilled in Jesus. But by reading them only in that way, those scriptures become disemboweled. It behooves Christians, instead, also to read those scriptures through Jewish eyes insofar as it's possible for Christians to do that.

In that way, the words can reveal new meaning that really is old meaning, which is to say original meaning that would have been understood by the first people to hear or read the words. That results in a much richer experience and does not contribute to a needlessly dismissive attitude toward Judaism.

* * *

ALL THE NEWTS THAT FIT TO PRINT

I'm a little reluctant to give Newt Gingrich any publicity because I think he has zero chance of ever being president, but the religious freedom issue columnist Maureen Dowd raises in this piece seems important enough to pass along. And, besides, Gingrich isn't the only candidate to be exploiting religious issues for political purposes. He's just among the more annoying.